UMECUnited Mining Exploration Commission: A group of friends playing JumpGate-- "a MMORPG that launched smoothly, breaks from fantasy character setting, emphasizes PvP, and is the first persistent world space simulator that nobody talks about." ~Scorch

eveonline is actually more than what the detractors say of it. I remember a time in JumpGate when i thought eve sucked because it was point and click and carebear. I also didn't like the fact it was hard to spot other ships in the sector...it all seemed distant pinpricks.

There's also the very disturbing fact you warp through things like planets, suns and stations...very hard on the immersion factor, and i've never gotten used to it.

The nice thing about Eve-online is that you can make a living doing anything in the game and have it be COMPETITIVE with the other careers. that is what makes the game enjoyable...the fact you can do something well and be rewarded and not get shafted because someone mix/maxxed another career that makes your's seem like a waste of time.

That means that mining, trading, npc-fighting and npc-agentmissions are valued contributions...

PvP. now, this is the interesting bit. i'd assumed the detractors saying it's carebear dominated and fuxx0r3d meant that you had PvP space and then carebear space. that's incorrect. Just like JumpGate, you can basically kill anyone anywhere anytime. The difference, and it's a big one, is that station defenses are not a joke like JG. I think that's what doomed JG. their station defense drones were, to put it mildly, deliberately insulting to any carebear's intelligence. Looking at JG from an objective standpoint, it's not hard to figure out that the developers wanted to scare off carebears. That is a flaw and dooms any MMOG that thinks that. Eve-online will blow the living crap outta you for trying, but at least you can try.

Now, i've left out manufacturing career to the end. That's because the developers have this expectation that making your mark on the game and it's community takes effort, lots of patience and an incredible amount of capital. do not expect a game where you can create a scientist/industrialist from the get-go. Unlike the other careers, you can't just expect to be a laboratory/Factory owner from the getgo with no preparation except for a ship and some gear.

They've made it almost impossible for the CASUAL player to take this last career. I don't know why, and it's a sore spot for me, but i guess i'll repeat what i said earlier: the developers of eve-online consider this career to be unique because it impacts the other players; just like PvP it's isolated to the hardcore player.

Its not so much complaints as a vocal mobb trying to push the devs around. EVE's solar systems is divided in security zones kind of. Where 1.0 to 0.5 is basically a non PVP zone unless sanctioned Corp/Alliance Wars. 0.4 to 0.0 is Wild west and open for PVP. You have the Empire dwellers on one side, and the 0.0 crowd on the other. The 0.0 crowd is made up of Alliances claiming systems with high end ore, the good NPC's to hunt etc. If a non alliance member enters these systems they can expect end up get ganked. That is if they doesn't end up get ganked by player pirates camping entry jump gates into these systems in the first place.

For a very long time life in Empire space been the same, people been doing mining low grade minerals, doing agent missions, small time production etc. Although most producers who don't have ties to 0.0 space have to purchase high grade minerals to well, blood prices from the 0.0 crowd.

With the latest Exodus patch, CCP introduced higher level agents (level 4). And these can be found in both high security Empire space and low security space. Alliances in 0.0 did notice more and more of their members did vacate back to Empire space doing high level missions rather than fight futile wars in 0.0 with other Alliances. Also many of those who before did make a living out of tedious mining moved on to doing agent missions, more fun, more risk but still better rewards than boring mining. With the new agents, people end up lose more ships than before because the missions are way harder. As a result mineral prices rise as more ships get blown up, and less miners do mine. Now the 0.0 crowd, Alliances, Player pirates who start suffer from members going back to Empire and weaken their war machine, and player pirates notice less targets to gank. They start the old battlecry about "Risk Vs Reward" and how easy these high level missions are and they pay to much. Cry up about how high mineral prices become as a result of them etc.

Since the start of EVE, the introduction of high level agents is probably the best thing ever happend for the non PVP players, the PVE'rs, the builders, miners etc. It gives more excitement to the game. Players that focus most on gather assets by missions, mining, production whateve really, of course gain more ISK (the currency in EVE) faster than those who focus on PVP which is hardly rewarding at all, as looting other players doesnt yield that much unless you are lucky and take out someone who got some nice modules fitted, or valuable cargo.
CCP been saying they will look into balance the agents and rewards based on the systems security standings. So the lower security of the system the more reward and bonus's. At same they said they wont move or chage the agents already in place. Well, some players seems to just want to push Empire dwellers back into doing tedious mining again to supply the PVP crowd with cheap base minerals so they can replace their lost ships easier. Imho, how I see it really. CCP said they are working towards make 0.0 more rewarding, however some people are impatient and think if they gather a big enough vocal mobb and give the impression its the voice of the general EVE population they can push the devs around to do things how they see fit. Sorry but things doesn't work like that, you can't bully devs around to alter the game mechanics to suit your player style, you need to adopt to changes in the game as they appear.
Last night membes of the "Xetic Federation", an alliance within EVE, started spam the EVE-Online forums with "or else", "quiting", etc kind of posts. The moderators did their job and closed down the threads that was little more than rants and spam. Then these jokers did create new threads with same spam all over, which the moderators closed again (and again).
I know some members of Xetic feelt bad about what happend afterwards and was shamefull about it, and it seem some even consider to leave Xetic because of this. I think its bad in general when players can't act their age, but act out so imature and childish so even a 4yr old is more mature. EVE is a game where you can do whatever you want to do, if you want to do PVP you do that, if you want to do PVE you do that, if you want do to little of everything you can. However some people think that PVP is all there is, even the actual PVP players in EVE is a minority they want to push their ways onto the general players. Start a campaign with the purpose of force players to go down to less secure space by screaming "Risk Vs Reward" over and over as loud they can. The average EVE player sort of got alienated from 0.0 part of space because not everyone is fond of lose ships and fittings they spent weeks, even months of aquire (not everyone play the game 23/7). What is someones laugh and fun for 5 min while they gank someone, can be someone elses hard work for the past month. Anways, EVE is a mmorpg as any other, there is a bunch of asshats in it as in other games ;-)